1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a transportation device for continuously supplying metal melt to a continuous casting plant by means of a ladle bogie and to casting ladles which can be deposited therein.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Different systems are known for making metal melt available to perform sequence casting, i.e. uninterrupted continuous supply of the contents of several casting ladles successively into the molds of a single-strand or multi-strand plant. "Stahlstrang-Giessanlagen" (Continuous Steel Casting Plants) by Dr. Ing. Baumann, published by Verlag Stahl Eisen 1976, pp. 208 to 215 discloses the two most common systems. These are characterised in that in one case the ladles are taken up by two traversing ladle bogies and in the other case by a so-called ladle turning tower.
In both cases the liquid steel is first conveyed from the converters to the continuous casting plants to which end a shed crane is used. When using a ladle turning tower, which is constructed either with a rigid support arm adapted to pivot about a fixed turning column and two receptors or with two support arms, each being individually pivotable about a turning column and each having reception means for the ladle, casting is always performed from the ladle of the support arm which has been turned over the mold. The other support arm will then be in an inoperative position in which, after the contents of the pouring ladle have been cast, a filled ladle can be engaged and pivoted over the mold by exchange with the emptied ladle. Thereafter, the shed crane again releases the arm with the empty casting ladle.
In the method of operation with two casting ladle bogies, casting ladles are supplied, in terms of ladle changeover, as already described previously for a ladle turning tower, but with the difference that transportation is performed on a linear track instead of an arcuate pivoting track. Casting operation is fundamentally maintained by means of intermediate vessels, which act as buffer stations during the casting ladle changeover times.
Both casting ladle changeover systems have proved themselves fully in practice and ensure completely continuous operation of a continuous casting plant. The provision of two casting ladle bogies or of a ladle turning tower however presupposes a casting platform of sufficient size and therefore a correspondingly generously dimensioned casting shed.